Let Them Eat Cake

I know many people have already commented on this issue, but I just had to chime in with my own two cents.

According to the Chicago Sun Times and the New York Times, the White House said on Saturday that the President will veto Senate legislation to expand health care coverage for uninsured American children.

The measure, which has bi-partisan support, would provide revenue to be used to expand an existing program, The Children’s Health Insurance Program, which is due to expire this fall.

The purpose of the expansion would be to subsidize health insurance for those “with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford insurance on their own.” (Chicago Sun Times). The source of the revenue would be an increase in taxes on cigarettes.

But of course, President Bush is against this. After all, we can’t have higher taxes on cigarettes. That would hurt his friends in the tobacco industry.

Besides, according to President Bush, anyone in America already has access to health care. As he said:

“I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room. The question is, will we be wise about how we pay for health care. I believe the best way to do so is to enable more people to have private insurance. And the reason I emphasize private insurance, the best health care plan -- the best health care policy is one that emphasizes private health. In other words, the opposite of that would be government control of health care.” (President Bush, speaking in Cleveland, Ohio).

Hellooo? President Bush? These are the children of people who don’t HAVE private insurance and can’t get it; either they aren’t working, or they have jobs with no benefits. And no one is saying that the government would be in control of health care. The government would help subsidize health insurance for these uninsured children, which is not government controlled health care at all.

(And what the heck is “private health”? Health that is only visible behind closed doors?)

Everyone knows that going to the emergency room for everyday medical problems is a terrible idea. It clogs up the emergency rooms, causing unacceptable waiting times for people with true emergencies; it is costly and inefficient. The costs are then passed on to everyone else. And worse yet, it does not provide preventive, ongoing medical care for the most vulnerable members of our society – our children.

The ironic thing is, President Bush knows this. Here’s what he said himself about going to the emergency room:

“The problem, oftentimes people go to the emergency room, which is very cost-inefficient. It costs the taxpayers money. The emergency room ought to be used for true emergencies, not for the primary care of health care -- primary health care for people who can't afford health care.”
(President Bush, speaking in Youngstown, Ohio)

So, you may wonder, why is the President so opposed to giving uninsured children health insurance? Here’s how White House Spokesman Tony Fratto explained it:

“The proposal would dramatically expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program, adding nonpoor children to the program, and more than doubling the level of spending,”Mr. Fratto said. “This will have the effect of encouraging many to drop private coverage, to go on the government-subsidized program.” (The NY Times, July 16, 2007).

First of all, how could the program “encourage many to drop private coverage” when the program would only cover those who don’t have coverage in the first place? Secondly, these “nonpoor” children are not exactly rolling in wealth. Not like President George W. Bush and his cronies.

“W” has no idea what it’s like to live in the real world. He was born into money, his family gave him every job he ever had, he never had to work for a living, never had to choose between spending money on food or medicine, never had to wonder where the next dollar was coming from. He never had to worry whether he’d have enough money to pay for his kids’ clothes. He never had to sit up with a sick child and weigh in his mind whether the illness was bad enough to bring the child to the emergency room or whether he could just wait it out and see what happened by the morning. He never had to worry whether the medical care he did get for that child was quality care or not. After all, he has had nothing but quality care from the day he was born.

For him to say that people can just go to emergency rooms for care shows how out of touch he is with the ordinary people in this country.

When Marie Antoinette said “Let them eat cake” when the people were begging for bread, she meant it; she wasn’t even trying to be nasty. She was so out of touch with her people that she didn’t understand that they did not have a choice between bread and cake. They only knew about bread. And they didn’t even have that.

The people George W. Bush is saying should just go to emergency rooms don’t have a choice between emergency rooms and real medical care. But he doesn't see that.

Marie Antoinette paid the price for her ignorance. President Bush will probably never even understand the true cost of his own ignorance, let alone pay the price.

Power of Schmooze!

I am honored to report that Amanda of It's All About the Walls has nominated me for a new award called the Power of Schmooze Award. The purpose of the award is to reward bloggers who not only blog but also participate in a conversation with other bloggers, creating new communities.

As a result of a quick Google search, I believe I have found the origin of this award, from a blog called Ordinary Folk. The author, Mike, and another blogger, Danielle, who writes the blog Pink Reviews apparently made this new award up. And I think it's a great idea.

When you're a new blogger, as I am, there is still such a thrill to see that you have new comments on one of your posts. It shows that not only are people reading what you wrote, but they actually care enough to comment or respond to the ideas being presented. I don't know whether that ever loses its novelty.

It reminds me of when I was back in college and the biggest event of the day was waiting for the mail to come. And when I looked at my little pigeon-hole and saw a letter in it, or better yet, several, it caused such a great feeling of joy and anticipation. (I happened to have friends at home who were excellent letter writers and their missives were usually hysterically funny. Sort of like reading some of my favorite blogs now!)

So, without further ado, I am happy to now pass on this award to other great bloggers who are also faithful commenters.

Of course, my first has to be Ruth of Me, My Life, My Garden. Ruth was probably my first commenter and has been one of my most faithful blogfriends ever since. She has several blogs, many of which feature her beautiful photographs of her garden, and chronicle the details of her life. Ruth has blogfriends from around the world.

I'm also happy to nominate Evil Spock of The Needs of the Few. His blog features posts by himself, Tootie the Uber-Tribble, Ensign Redshirt, Lt. Marlena Moreau, Medusan-in-a-box, and The Collective, as well as The Sophie. Evil Spock and The Collective are running for President and Vice President in 2012. Evil Spock has been a very loyal commenter on my blog and responds to all comments on his as well. An excellent schmoozer!

"M" of m's blog is another great schmoozer - she posts prolifically and comments on others' blogs and responds on her own. She also authors a great blog about my favorite area of the country, the San Francisco Bay Area, called Bay Area Love Letters.

I'll stop with three for now! There are lots of other great schmoozers out there (Hi Larry and Tomcat!) but I might have to pick some other blogs in the future - maybe "great political bloggers" perhaps? Hmmm, anybody know if there is an award for that out there? If not perhaps we should invent one.

Thanks again, Amanda, and congratulations to the new nominees!

Repeat Offender

We have had a hard week. First we took Diva in on Monday for her surgery to remove what turned out, thankfully, to be a benign cyst. We had been given a collar for her to wear but she hated it so we took it off and just kept an eye on her.

DH stayed home with her on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we left her home alone. She managed to pull out one of the stitches that day but I didn't panic, because it was only one, and the rest of the wound was securely closed. So I put a Band-aid on it and we all went to sleep. This was Wednesday night.

Thursday morning after breakfast I turned my back on her for all of five minutes and when I looked at her again she'd gotten all the stitches out! She knows what she is doing, don't you think she doesn't. We've scolded her enough times if she starts licking her leg. So she acts all innocent while we're watching her, but then when our backs are turned, her little dog brain must say "Aha! They're not watching me! Time to remove these annoying things from my leg!"

So I called the vet where she's been having these surgeries done (which is also the Emergency Clinic at night, so they are well-acquainted with us!). They told me to bring her in and they'd put in staples this time.

I had been all set to go to work, but this put a monkey-wrench into that plan. Luckily I have an understanding, animal-loving boss. After bringing Diva home, with yet another Elizabethan collar, I worked at home the rest of the day, and stayed home with her on Friday as well. All went fine until today.

She'd been totally ignoring the stapled portion of her front leg today - we were thinking it must be healing up by now so were less concerned. We still didn't let her out of our sight, though. Then I made a crucial error. I went upstairs to take a shower, while DH decided to go run a quick errand. He didn't realize I was taking a shower, and I didn't realize he didn't put the collar back on her.

Ten minutes later, I went downstairs to see what she was doing...and wouldn't you know it - all but one of the staples had been thoroughly removed and were on the carpet. And the cut was opened up all over again.

I called the vet's again, they said bring her in again. And you have to understand this place is a good 20 minutes away by highway! A lot of back and forth has been occurring here.

So, once again, Miss D made an appearance at the clinic, where she was welcomed by all. The doctor told me everyone loved her so much they were fighting for the privilege of taking care of her in the back.

After a half hour, they brought her back out. I had asked for a slightly smaller collar that would be less annoying to her, and she came trotting out wearing it, and proudly displaying her newly-restapled front leg. That collar is not coming off for any reason whatsoever, except to eat. We have learned our lesson!

More Words to the Wise from My Mom

Check out her latest post...

Marge's Words to the Wise

Keep on rockin'!

I am honored to report that Kuanyin of Who's Yo Mama? recently nominated me for a "Rockin' Girl Blogger" award! Thanks so much, Kuanyin!

And, as is the tradition, I will now nominate some others that I feel deserve this award. I know I've already nominated some for the Thinking Blogger Award so this time I'll try to pick some other blogs you may or may not have noticed on my sidebar.

The first is Inside Betty's Head. Elizabeth's blog is beautifully written and her subject matter always worth reading, as her observations and stories are full of insight.

Rhea of the The Boomer Chronicles writes an entertaining blog that any Baby Boomer will relate to, and everyone will enjoy. Her blog is updated daily and her subjects are always interesting.

Third is Miss Doxie. Many of you may already know that Leigh has three adorable dachshunds (hence her blog's name), a boyfriend named Dukay, and humor to spare. Her dad recently was seriously ill so she has not posted since late June, but you can entertain yourself for days in her archives until that wondrous moment when she posts a new entry. Be careful if you're reading at work, as most of the time her blog will make you laugh out loud. Sometimes, though, you may cry. Both are difficult at work. And please, keep her dad in your thoughts.

Also...there is a new post on Medicana if you'd like to check it out.

Diva's Biopsy = Good!

Today I called the vet with trepidation to find out whether Diva's biopsy results had come back, from the little bump she had taken off her front leg on Monday.

I always casually think, "Oh, I'll call them rather than wait until they call me, that way I'm mentally prepared." But despite the "preparation," or maybe because of it, I get that sinking feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach as I'm waiting to be connected to the doctor. It's the unknown - until you know the answer, you expect the worst. At least I do. I had my mind all scrunched up awaiting the blow to come: "I'm sorry to tell you but this new tumor is a Grade 2..." or heaven forbid, Grade 3. Or that they didn't get it all.

But instead, the doctor said cheerfully, "Good news. Diva's biopsy showed it was just a little cyst." Nothing to worry about. Amazing. It hadn't even occurred to me that the bump would not be some grade of mast cell tumor, with the history she had had. And it looked JUST like the other two that were mast cell tumors. But that is the weird thing about this type of tumor - they can look like anything.

So, it looks as if we don't have to give her any chemotherapy after all, at least not this time.

But I'll be keeping my eye out, staying vigilant, making sure no new bumps go unnoticed. As a hypochondriac, I catch things early, because outcomes are better that way. So I'm being a hypochondriac on behalf of my dog for the same reason.

Luckily, Diva is oblivious that anything is ever wrong in her little life. She loves going to the place where we have had these operations done; she wags her tail at everybody, and is ecstatic to greet the vet assistant who comes to take her away. Despite the fact that the last two times she's been brought there, she goes to sleep and wakes up with a nasty sore place somewhere on her body and feels crummy for a day or so, it doesn't stop her from loving to go see those people the next time.

Dogs are truly able to live in the now. We should all be so lucky as to have their "live for today" attitude.

Speaking Standard

I read an interesting column by Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. She used the example of a poor woman she met on the street handing out advertisements, who did not speak English, to bring up some very interesting points about the importance of our country having a national language. She wrote, "We must speak the same language so we can hearten each other."

It is an interesting thought - rather than the jingoistic mantra of the neocons, "We should declare the national language to be English because if you come to this country, you darn well better speak our language!" she is looking at it from a humanistic standpoint.

Ms. Noonan asks, "The real question, ultimately, is...should we allow America [to] devolve into a nation of two official languages--in this case, following recent demographic trends and realities, English and Spanish?

We've never done that in more than 200 years. It would be radical, and destructive, to do it now."

She rightly points out that other generations of immigrants before us have always eventually learned English and joined the mainstream culture. My husband's father grew up in Perth Amboy in a Polish immigrant neighborhood where the schools were taught in Polish. Born here, he easily learned English but can still speak Polish to this day.

The advantage English has, and the reason it will always be the single common language in this country, is that it is a language that can absorb and incorporate the best of other languages. As Ms. Noonan noted, "Italian immigrants knew two languages, English and Italian. They enriched the first with the second--this was a great gift to all of us--and wound up with greater opportunities for personal communication to boot. Talk about win-win. And so with every group, from every place."

I have no fear that the current Spanish-speaking immigrants won't follow this same pattern. It's a pattern that has existed since the birth of our nation. Just because today's current immigrants happen to be speaking Spanish and people are seeing signs in Spanish in the immigrant neighborhoods does not mean we are devolving into a nation of two languages.

I am in the market research field and have observed focus groups with Hispanic mothers, conducted in Spanish (with a translator, since, alas, most of us marketing types are not fluent in Spanish). Time and again, these mothers have talked about the fact that although they don't speak English well since they came over to the United States as adults, their kids are already speaking it fluently and are bringing home American customs and idioms and incorporating them into the household.

The mothers complain that oftentimes the children refuse to speak Spanish, so the mother will speak Spanish to the child and the child will answer in English. Their children, like all previous children of immigrants, are going to slide into the mainstream as all have done all along. There is no need to make English the "official" language of the country as some politicians wish to do.

The reason for this is another thing that Ms. Noonan points out in her article. English is the language you need to succeed - not just here in the United States, but throughout the world.

In the original Star Trek series, they all spoke English. In order to explain this phenomenon (given Gene Roddenberry's propensity for encouraging diversity and equality) the writers did not call it English. They called it "Standard." As in, "Do you speak Standard?" And Standard it is. If people from different countries who do not know each other's language meet, what do they speak to communicate? English.

What is the international language of business? English. What is the one foreign language taught in schools all over the world, more than any other? English.

I even know a man who immigrated here from India, who later married a woman who came over from India and did not know his particular Indian dialect. They speak English to communicate.

Part of this is, of course, because America, arguably the most powerful nation in the world - at least for now - does not encourage schools, parents and kids to learn, fluently, other languages. That is partly because it's so hard to decide on one that would be useful, since there are so many languages to learn. But surely, Spanish, at this time in our history, would be the one to teach, so that, as Ms. Noonan says, we can "hearten each other."

Communication is extremely important, and while these latest immigrants to our country are gradually integrating into our culture, it wouldn't hurt us to learn their language too, in order to reach out a helping hand to bring them aboard. This does not mean we're adopting a second language for our nation, just that we're making the effort to communicate so we can all understand each other better.

It's Patriotic to Blog Against Theocracy

This is the second time I've participated in the Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm. This time the participation dates were July 1-4 in honor of this country's independence, to show that being against theocracy is a patriotic stance to take. Since it is 9:43 on July 4th, I'm getting this in under the wire.

Today, as is traditional, the New York Times published the Declaration of Independence in full. My husband read it out loud, and as always we were touched by the bravery of the men who signed it, knowing full well that if the British caught them, they would be hanged as traitors.

The document is written so beautifully, spelling out one at a time the various transgressions that King George had perpetrated against the colonists. Interestingly, many of these actions are being taken by the government we have today. It makes me wonder whether it is time for a new revolution.

Those who favor the intermingling of religion with our government love to use the Declaration of Independence to prove that the Founding Fathers believed in God and were religious and assumed all of the people in the country would agree with them on this point. They point to Jefferson's use of "Creator" in the document and use it as a point in favor of allowing religion to permeate all aspects of the government.

But they are wrong. It is not the Declaration of Independence, important though it is, that spells out the rights and privileges of United States citizens. No, it is the U.S. Constitution that has this task.

I found a full copy of the Constitution on the internet. I searched in vain for a mention of "God," "Creator," "Lord," or "Jehovah." Each time the search came up with nothing. The only mention of religion is in the First Amendment, where it says:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The Founding Fathers didn't want the government messing with people's religions. They didn't want the government to be in the God business one way or the other. If they wanted to put God in the Constitution, they easily could have mentioned it. On the contrary, they obviously went to a great deal of trouble to leave God out of it entirely, since his name in any of its forms is not in the document.

Many of their ancestors had come to America for religious freedom, escaping from countries where there was one state religion and if you didn't follow that one, you were out of luck. They didn't want the same thing to happen in this new republic that they were founding. They didn't want people who practiced a less common type of religion to feel left out, persecuted, or uncomfortable because they were not in the majority. It was one of the principles on which this country was founded: the freedom to be yourself without fear.

Despite the clear directive of the Constitution, Christianity has been the mainstream religion that permeates our lives, whether we believe in it or not. In recent times, more efforts have been made to try to eliminate religious expression from government-related events and locations in order to prevent minority religious groups from feeling excluded from the public discourse.

And who howls in protest about this, claiming their right to religious expression is being denied? You guessed it: Christians. The largest religious group in the country, with countless churches, millions of members; the group with television and radio shows proclaiming their beliefs; the group whose holidays completely take over the public scene. Yes, them. They say their religious expression is being denied because their town won't put a creche scene on the town hall lawn at Christmas. Never mind that the town has a Christmas tree lighting and Santa Claus greeting the kids. Gotta have that creche scene or else their rights are being denied.

The problem with these people is, they don't have any conception of what it's like to NOT be the mainstream religion. They don't know what it's like to be the only Jewish kid among a group of kids celebrating Christmas. Or be a Hindu person at a Democratic fundraising breakfast who has to hear someone say a prayer that invokes "Our Lord Jesus Christ," with the smug assumption that Jesus Christ is the Lord of everyone in that room.

They have no idea what it feels like to not be the majority, to have to roll with the punches and smile as someone else's culture and beliefs are shoved down their throats. They don't know what it's like to be a Muslim in this day and age and hear the sly comments and whispers, or feel the prejudice.

Freedom of religion means you are free to worship the way you see fit, in the church, mosque or temple of your choice. It means no one will cart you away in a railroad car to a concentration camp for being Jews. It means that you don't have to hide your Catholic mass in someone's attic as they did in Amsterdam when the Protestants were in charge. It means you don't have to worry that someone is going to burn down your church. It means that you don't have to worship at all if you don't want to.

It doesn't mean that you can inject your own religion into every part of public life just because you're the majority. As the saying goes, your freedom to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose. If your desire to practice your religion in freedom impinges on the freedom of someone else then your freedom must be abridged just enough so that both of you are free to worship without feeling stifled.

The only way this can happen in any practical way is to leave religion out of government. Sure, you could include every single religion in an opening prayer, but it would get pretty dicey when you add in the Druids and the Wiccans on top of the Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists and the various other sects that exist in this country. I really think even the outraged Christians would agree not promoting any religion is the easier solution.

In case anyone wonders, my mother was brought up Protestant, my father was Jewish and converted to Christianity. I was raised Protestant (Congregationalist/United Church or Christ). I now consider myself an agnostic. I don't say I'm an atheist, because, as the New York Lottery says, "Hey, you never know!"

But I do admire people who follow their religion and who sincerely believe. I often wish I had that ability but I'm a born skeptic and although I've tried in the past, I never can get rid of that little nagging voice of doubt.

However, if I had been able to achieve true faith, I still don't think I'd have felt a need for my religion to be included in public events and on public property. I feel religion is a personal thing, to be celebrated in the company of your fellow worshippers, or alone. To me, that is freedom to worship as you please--and it should be enough.

Happy 4th of July!

In honor of the holiday I'm posting JibJab's latest production. I think you'll enjoy it!

Star Spangled Banner
|Funny Jokes at JibJab

Floating Anxiety

I remember when I was young, my father, who was a medical advertising copywriter, used to go around the house talking about "floating anxiety." One of his clients was the company that made the tranquilizer Librium, and he often read his print ads out loud to my mother, who had also been a medical advertising writer before she had me and forever retired from the world of work. (Mind you, I realize raising me was also work. But it didn't involve getting up really early, showering, putting on a suit and high heels, and marching out the door every morning to catch a bus).

Back to the anxiety. As you can imagine, growing up with two parents in the medical writing field, I got pretty used to the terminology. But sometimes things stuck in my mind.

Floating anxiety was one of those things. It always sounded so ephemeral, a cloud of anxiety floating above someone's head sort of like that little raincloud that was always over the head of that character in L'il Abner (is L'il Abner even in the comics anymore?).

It denotes the type of anxiety where a person doesn't really know why they're anxious; they just are. I often get this during the week when I have to go to work, or on Sunday afternoons when that late afternoon dread starts to mount. (Is there anyone out there who doesn't have this feeling on Sundays before a work week? If so, please tell me what kind of job you have so that I can try to get one like it).

Today I have anxiety -- but it isn't officially floating. It has a cause. I noticed that Diva has another bump on her "arm." The same "arm" that had to have a bump taken off it back in March. I am already sure that it is probably yet another mast cell tumor and will have to be removed.

For those of you who may not have ready my earlier posts, Diva has now had two Grade 1 mast cell tumors removed; one from her shoulder and one from her front leg. The latter one left a nasty scar since she could reach it to lick off the stitches. And this new bump is only about a centimeter or two away from the scar. I wonder whether it is actually a recurrence of the one that was removed, or a new one.

The good news is, it is probably another Grade 1 (least aggressive) tumor. The bad news is, being the third one, she would probably have to have some chemotherapy (in pill form) to try to slow down the next one from popping up. And of course, she would once again have to go under anesthesia and have another nasty cut on her arm that has to heal. I am also concerned because the location may make it more difficult to remove all the tissue because it is right next to the first scar.

I feel as if we're playing "whack a mole" with these things. You get rid of one, and another one pops up. How many times can the poor dog go through this?

I didn't do anything about it today. Tomorrow is a holiday so probably the vet would not be able to see her until later this week anyway. I want to talk to the oncologist and see if she recommends a needle biopsy first, or whether it would be best to take her in for the full surgery given her history. I just can't deal with it at the moment.

Diva is her usual happy, healthy, lively self, and it's hard to imagine this miniscule, almost unnoticeable bump could possibly kill her if we don't remove it. But I have to remind myself that it could. And deal with it.